The Commencement of Heroes
by Wingless Night
Summary: After given a riddle to them by the Demon King, Naruto and Sasuke are out on their own, trying to solve this thing. Unfortunately, nothing seems to help them – not to mention that lately, Naruto looks more Fox than human. Sequel to Ragtag Heroes Are Never


_Sorry people that it took me relatively seven months, almost, to create the sequel. I don't really know what to blame for that. It's more like, I've been lazy. Very Very Very Very VERY lazy. And I'm slightly proud of that fact, but whatever. _

_Okay, well here's The Commencement of Heroes… and yeah… enjoy chapter one… I'm not entirely sure when number two is coming out._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything else, or else… well… (perverted grin)_

_Warnings: I don't know yet. Language… um… violence towards a sleeping Sasuke… that's about all so far._

_Summary: After given a riddle to them by the Demon King, Naruto and Sasuke are out on their own, trying to solve this thing. Unfortunately, nothing seems to help them – not to mention that lately, Naruto looks more Fox than human._

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The Commencement of Heroes  
****(Sequel to Ragtag Heroes Are never Fallen)  
****Chapter One: Nothing**

Two boys stood at the top of a summit, looking down at their surroundings. It was beautiful, this landscape. It was something that either of them had only seen in textbooks several years ago.

"It's amazing," the younger of the two breathed out as he stared at the golden light shed by the dying sun.

The teenager beside him could only nod in response. He companion had summed up perfectly what was before him. Below them, they could make out towns, as well as the wild places of Nature. There were plains in the distance to the North. To the South lay endless dunes of sand: the waste of a desert. Swampland mixed with forests could be viewed to the East of their position. West of them were the endless mountain forests that they had been traveling through for the past month and a half.

Looking at the sight, it made the two realize how far away from home they really were. The younger leaned onto his friend's shoulder.

"Can you believe it?" he asked. "We've been traveling on our own for two years already since we left Konohagakure and it's been four years since Kyuushin gave you your riddle, Sasuke."

The one named Sasuke nodded again. His pale skin shone in the light of the sunset they had stopped to watch. He had eyes as dark as a moonless night and hair of the same color. His muscles were finely tuned, giving him both strength and acrobatic skills. He was a shinobi, one of the best. Now he was on a quest that he had been given by the current King of Demons, a Fox Demon named Kyuushin. He and his fellow shinobi, Naruto, were trying to figure out what this riddle meant.

Unfortunately, they didn't really have anything figured out. The riddle didn't make any type of sense. They had traveled more in the past two years than they thought they would have to. In fact, when originally planning for this mission, the two hadn't thought they would be gone for more than a year.

Naruto sat down. Like Sasuke, he had grown since the left. His once bright blonde hair was now streaked with red. His muscles were strong enough to bend metal. Ever since Kyuunan, the demon trapped in his stomach, had come out and took control of hid body when he was twelve, the two had been merging at an alarming rate. As it were, the whisker scars on his cheeks were more defined and his left eye was now orange, the pupil slit like a fox's. A reddish-orange tail was waving absently behind him. Naruto also had fangs and retractable talons, so there was no need to carry any sort of ninja weapon anymore.

Sasuke had found each of these discoveries strange and slightly scary, but as soon as he knew it was still Naruto, he had relaxed. He even thought, though would never admit, that the sixteen year old boy looked kind of sexy with the additions.

"I'm tired!" Naruto complained childishly.

Sasuke couldn't help but smile at his friend. "Shouldn't shinobi be able to travel through day _and_ night?" Sasuke teased lightly.

Naruto glared at him. "Shut up, bastard!" he growled. "We've been traveling day and night for almost a week."

Sasuke laughed at the half glare/half pout face that was directed at him. In truth, he was exhausted as well, but he didn't want to admit it. "Fine, dobe, we'll stop,"

Naruto just smiled at Sasuke as he made no move to get up from the boy's shoulder. "Thanks," he whispered, barely loud enough for his partner to hear.

They sat like that for a while, until long after the sun had departed in order for twilight, and eventually, darkness to set in.

By the time the moon rose into the dark sky that was dotted with stars, the boys had set up their camp. A fire was crackling merrily as they ate the last of the food they bought in the previous village a week ago.

Naruto looked up at the stars. Each and every one of them seemed so far away, and he wondered why that was so. Why were the stars so far way from them? He felt/heard Sasuke lay down next to him and could feel the boy's breath mingle with the sky in the cold night.

Over the past four years, ever since Kyuushin had left the riddle with Sasuke, the two boys had gotten much closer. They trained together, lived together, knew each other and had a strange type of love for each other.

Naruto cherished the relationship he had with Sasuke. It was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Even though he looked different, more like a fox than he ever had before, Sasuke seemed to realize that inside of this body, he was still the same old Naruto. Not many people that Naruto knew would have been that accepting of him. He was pretty sure that Sakura, his former teammate, wouldn't have much cared for him. After all, she put him through hell after he and Kyuunan began to merge.

Naruto could remember clearly when the process had all began. It was on Team Seven's first _real_ mission. They had been ordered by the Hokage, Sandaime at the time, to escort a bridgebuilder named Tazuna to his hometown from Konohagakure and guard him with his finished his bridge. On the way, they were attacked by shinobi from the Land of the Mist. They fought bravely and thought they ad overcome their enemies but this was not so. Two of the shinobi, Zabuza and Haku, appeared again in order to challenge the four of them. While Kakashi, their teacher, had fought with Zabuza and Sakura guarded Tazuna, the boys had gone head on with Haku.

Haku had been a boy of thirteen, maybe fourteen, but he was much stronger than the two of them combined. They had fought him as best as they could but then, Sasuke went down and Naruto jumped in front of him, saving Sasuke but dying himself.

Kyuunan had used almost all of his chakra in order to bring Naruto back. Haku had become Sasuke's first kill.

Naruto sighed, remembering the words that he and Sasuke had exchanged during that memory. Those voices, _their_ voices, had always haunted Naruto. He couldn't seem to get rid of them, even as time when by. He could hear them even now, as he stood alive and well four years later.

The boy was startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped, turning towards whoever had grabbed him. It was Sasuke. Once he saw this, the boy relaxed, then chid himself for thinking it was anyone else besides Sasuke. There wasn't anyone else around for a few miles, at least.

"You want to take the first watch or should I?" the Uchiha boy asked. Naruto and Sasuke knew each other well enough to read in between the lines. What Sasuke was _really_ asking was, _Are you all right?_

"You can if you want to," Naruto replied. _No, I'm not._

"Are you sure?" _What's wrong?_

"Of course I'm sure, bastard." _Nothing. Nothing._

"You usually aren't like this." _Tell me, Dammit._

"Well, I'm tired." _No._

Sasuke shrugged and sat back up, looking at his friend and then at the stars. Something was bothering Naruto, he just didn't know what it was! Sometimes it angered him that Naruto wasn't a hundred percent honest with him, but he couldn't really complain either. He wasn't even close to a hundred percent honest with what went on in his own head, either.

The Uchiha looked at his friend. Naruto had changed more than he had in the past four years. It was just his physique either. The boy was not the same energetic blonde idiot he had known when he had been first assigned to Team Seven, but he was still someone that Sasuke could admire.

Surrounded by silence, the Uchiha turned and looked at Naruto. The blonde was still Sasuke's best friend, no matter what happened. He hoped that that fact would never change and he would do all he could to make sure it didn't. But…

"Do you think I'm stupid?" he asked, surprising the other.

The fox-boy stared at him blankly for a minute. "Arrogant, pigheaded, stubborn and with a stick lodged permanently up your ass… yes," he answered. Sasuke looked a bit miffed. "Stupid, though? I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

Sasuke shrugged. "Just thinking I might be stupid for making you come with me," he confessed, struggling not to appear vulnerable.

Naruto just offered him a fanged smile. "It was my choice. _I_ wanted to come."

"Yeah right. I've dragged you around chasing an illusion for two years. Don't you miss the people back home?"

Sasuke finally realized what he was trying to do. He felt guilty for taking Naruto with him everywhere. Naruto had a life back in Konohagakure and Sasuke had taken him from it. If Naruto felt the slightest urge to go back, then Sasuke would send him there. No questions asked.

Right now, the blonde was staring at him with a strange look on his face. Sasuke closed his eyes, waiting for Naruto's answer.

"Sure, I miss them, but I made my choice,. I'm not changing my decision. Besides…," he trailed off with an embarrassed grin. Sasuke opened his eyes again. "I don't think many people would recognize me as who I once was. Even less would try to live with me. It's just easier these days. It's just so much easier to be in places were no one knows my name."

Sasuke nodded. It was nice not to be treated as the survivor of the Uchiha Massacre. Instead, he was just like Naruto – a nameless wanderer, searching for something just like all wanderers were. Towns and the people that they passed all the time didn't know their pasts, and to these two boys, that was a huge relief.

"I'll take the first watch," Naruto broke into the boy's thoughts. "You get some sleep."

Sasuke didn't argue as he curled up under his blanket and allowed sleep to claim him.

* * *

Naruto stayed awake as he stared up at the darkened sky. He was thinking of his most recent conversation with Sasuke. The boy _was_ acting strangely lately. Naruto couldn't blame him, though. They had been traveling for two years and couldn't find anything that could help them solve the riddle that Kyuushin had given them.

Both of them had it memorized and Naruto went over it in hi head once again to pass the time.

_Never tarry for life shall stop_, he recited in his head. _And a soul will suffice. Look across a mirror under a wheel to find the crystal you seek. There's a mountain in a stream on a tablet of clouds to lay a surface. Journey to the ends of Sand, flip a dragons head and your quest you'll complete._

Naruto sighed. He couldn't figure out this riddle. They had very little to go on as it were. No one had told them anything that could help them solve it.

Suddenly, pain flared through the Uzumaki's temples. He hissed softly, trying to contain the sensation. He knew what was happening. It had happened several times before. Some other part of him was transforming. The blonde hated how he was powerless in this situation. He had no way to control when it happened. He gritted his teeth together. It was like fire, burning every part of him that it could reach.

He tried to keep as quiet as possibly. He didn't want to wake up Sasuke. Sasuke would just get worried and freak out, like always and Naruto just couldn't bear that on top of what he was already going through. He bit his tongue, trying his hardest to stay silent.

Just as quickly as it had started, all of it stopped. Naruto breathed out, his fangs causing the air to make a soft whistling sound. His tongue hurt from biting it, but it would heal. Everything around him was silent. Or rather, it was as though he could _hear_ the silence itself. It was hard to describe in words. Everything could be heard clearly, amplified several times from what it had been. Only the breeze was moving and what it could touch, for a rather large radius, Naruto could hear it sway. It wasn't a bad thing… this new range of sounds, it was just different from what he had normally had.

Wait… different?

His hands went immediately to the sides of his head. There were soft, not like his normal course hair. He sighed as he realized what had happened. Great. Fur-lined fox ears were now _his_ ears.

He looked at the moon again. It was beginning to set, meaning that it was time for Sasuke's shift. Naruto didn't want to sleep, but he also knew that Sasuke would kill him if he didn't wake him up for his shift. Even though both boys were used to the sudden changes in Naruto, it didn't make anything better when they were confronted by a new change. Sasuke would still be curious as to whether it was real, and Naruto would be annoyed that Sasuke was bothering him so much.

He would never forget the incident when he got a tail.

It was midday, about six months back when Naruto had received his tail.

_The blonde was curled up into fetal position, pain flaring through him. Sasuke stood by, not knowing what he could do. His hands fidgeted because he really wanted to make sure Naruto wasn't in any pain, though that was stupid because it was obvious that he was. _

"_Naruto," he asked softly, wondering if by speaking louder he would hurt more than help the boy. "Is there anything I can do to help?"_

_Naruto shook his head, fangs digging into his lip. It wasn't for a while later that the pain had finally stopped. Naruto stood up, almost as if nothing happened, only to find Sasuke looking at him strangely. _

_He sighed. "All right, what's the newest addition?" Naruto asked._

_Sasuke walked around him, making Naruto feeling nervous before pulling on his tail. Naruto yelped. _

"_Holy shit, Naruto… you have a tail."_

"_Yeah," he said through the pain that the yank had caused. "I guess I do."_

_From then on, Sasuke was not allowed anywhere **near** his tail._

Naruto hoped it was dark enough for Sasuke not to notice his new… ears. He went over to the boy, who was near the embers that had been left from their earlier fire and jabbed the boy harshly in the side. He had learned that Sasuke wouldn't really respond to any other way to wake up, except for getting up on his own.

"Oy, bastard," he growled softly. "Up. My turn to sleep. Get up!"

Sasuke groaned something under his blanket that sounded like "five more minutes" or something of the like. Naruto scowled at the heap under the blanket. If only Sakura, their former teammate, could see him now.

"Uchiha!" he shouted, kicking the form under the blanket. "Get the fuck up!"

Sasuke stuck his head out from under the blanket, looking blearily up at his partner. "What?" he grumbled with a yawn, knowing immediately that they weren't in any type of trouble. Besides, Naruto wouldn't have kicked him if they were in trouble… he would have scratched him. It woke him up easiest, according to Naruto.

"It's your turn for watch, dumbass," the blonde grumbled.

"Really?" Sasuke yawned as he stretched. He got up, looking strangely at his friend. "You _do_ realize that you have ears… right?"

It took nearly all of Naruto's self-control not to scream.

_

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Kyuubi-kun's Korner!_

_Hi everyone… sorry it took so long. I found out something though… I have absolutely no idea what the riddle means, so don't count on them finding out what it means anytime soon. I knew what it was when I made it up… but its been six and a half months since then… you can't expect my memory to be good enough to hold on even after that long. If you did, well, that's why I'm correcting you. Moving on, I know that Naruto's changed a lot… considering I wrote most of this chapter by candlelight (because I didn't feel like getting up to turn on my bedroom light) and was done so at about three in the morning… what was I talking about again? Grumbly… moving on…_

_Absolutely nothing left to talk about. I hoped you enjoyed this chapter and I hope it doesn't take me long to get out the next one. _


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